Another silly apt problem

tumbledryDishwasher · 2025/08/29, 21:24:46

And of course this happens while I was preoccupied with trying to send an email.

Hello! I was having problems with mono-complete, so I went to update it, and that gave me problems with dpkg.

Askubuntu gave me a decent answer that fixed that problem... at the cost of borking my entire UI. for the second time. I'm at a loss as to what to do about this.

I'm getting many (so many it pauses Terminal execution for like 10 seconds) errors like: "dpkg: warning: files list file for package", if that helps whatsoever.

I can confirm that it's not the same problem as last time, but it could be due to using apt-get vs apt? or something?

I don't know what I did exactly, I'm sorry :(

if you need a command for more information, do let me know and I can grab it when I can. tysm

devil · 2025/08/30, 00:01:04

Sorry to say, but your post lacks any information that could be useful to help you.

tumbledryDishwasher · 2025/08/30, 08:28:16

Yeah, that's fair. I made the post right before I went to bed, since I was mildly annoyed, and I couldn't start fiddling with commands because I had work, so that's completely on me. I'm still not at the computer yet, but in the meantime I'll try & find what I ran and send another post regarding that. Sorry :/

devil · 2025/08/30, 10:09:15

No worries, life does get in the way sometimes

michaa7 · 2025/08/30, 13:00:43

Quote from: tumbledryDishwasher on 2025/08/30, 08:28:16
... but in the meantime I'll try & find what I ran...

If you are in a root terminal, you can jump through your issued commands using the up and down arrow keys. This will show all the commands in their timely sequence.

tumbledryDishwasher · 2025/08/30, 13:31:02

sorry for the delay, I found them!

Also, yes, the up/down is quite useful indeed.

in order:
sudo apt --fix-broken install
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/dpkg/info/*. * [this might've been what caused it in retrospect, whoops.]
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get check
sudo apt-get - f install
sudo apt-get upgrade

because i am a goober and can't double-check what I am doing. note to self, start doing that.

guess I gotta learn the hard way, but still AUGH
sorry :v

michaa7 · 2025/08/30, 13:47:02

You removed the list of contents of your system. dpkg now has no means to know what's installed. ---> best you can do IMHO is a complete new installation.

BTW, what was the Askubuntu ... answer that fixed that problem ? You know, Debian is NOT ubuntu..

tumbledryDishwasher · 2025/08/30, 13:50:12

I wish I could find it again, man. your guess is as good as mine.

though that sucks, guess I gotta back up everything I can. sorry :v

Geier0815 · 2025/08/30, 14:11:22

Have a closer look at this thread: https://serverfault.com/questions/484933/debian-removed-var-lib-dpkg-info-is-there-a-way-to-save-the-system
Maybe you can save your system BUT that's not easy. Depending of how much you changed in your system it's maybe easier to start all over and set the system up again. Backup your stored personal data before

tumbledryDishwasher · 2025/08/30, 20:46:15

While I didn't follow that one in particular, I was actually able to succeed in doing that and fixing it up. One problem was Mono, I had to completely remove the mono repo and delete everything that had to do with mono-complete (and also learn that apt-get is more forgiving in situations like this rather than apt by itself).

Again, in retrospect this was really silly, but you're only ever going to learn by messing up, I guess. Thanks for the help

!